The present invention relates to hotel entertainment systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to an electronic address tag for associating a unique address with a hotel room for tracking system use of hotel television and/or pay-per-view movie systems.
In the hotel business, maximizing guest satisfaction is a priority. Any customer dissatisfaction or guest frustration can cause complaints which ultimately result in a loss of revenue. One area in which a hotel guest expects a high standard of performance is in the proper functioning of entertainment equipment provided in the guest room.
The hotel television and pay-per-view movie system is both a source of entertainment for the guest and a means to collect revenue for the hotelier. These video entertainment systems usually must include a method for identifying guest movie selections and tracking entertainment system use for billing purposes. One such method includes the use of a unique address which associates a unique address with each hotel guest's television. Typically, the address is located in the television's control box. The television control box is usually located inside or next to the television.
When a hotel guest watches a pay-per-view movie on the television, the cost of the movie is charged to the unique address. When the hotel guest checks out of the hotel, the guest pays for all pay-per-view movies billed to that unique address.
Typically, when a hotel guest is paying his or her bill, the guest is in a hurry to check out and leave the hotel. Great dissatisfaction occurs if the hotel guest is improperly billed. Improper billing may result in a loss of revenue to the hotel due to the loss of repeat business from an unhappy hotel guest or loss of revenue due to improper billing.
Hotel entertainment systems having unique addresses associated with each guest's television have presented many problems. For example, in a typical hotel pay-per-view system having a centralized movie distribution center with a television in each guest room, each television has a unique electronic address. Commonly, a permanent serial number or address is assigned to each television at the time of manufacture. When the television is installed in a room, the specific television address is assigned to the guest's room. In this situation, an installer must correctly read and record the television address from a label on the television, carry that address information to the movie distribution center, and then enter the address into a distribution center data base. This type of manual procedure is often prone to error, especially considering the fact that room occupancy usually precludes obtaining guest room television addresses in sequential order.
Once installation is complete, the televisions are subject to periodic or emergency maintenance. Every time a television is replaced in a room for maintenance purposes, personnel must re-open the data base at the distribution center, delete the old address and manually type in the new address for the guest room television being placed into service. This operation is very vulnerable to human error. If an error is made, the hotel will not be able to track entertainment system use for each corresponding guest room for billing purposes.
An alternate system which was designed to solve the above problems includes a manually settable device located at each guest room television for setting the address corresponding to the guest room number. This system is still prone to user error, since it relies on personnel who may be under pressure from an unhappy guest to fix the television quickly, and may forget to readdress the television being installed. This system is also vulnerable to guests who attempt to change the settable address to that of another hotel guest room to escape paying for movies.
In use, these types of systems not only result in lost revenues due to billing errors, but also result in irate guests who may be incorrectly billed because of mixed-up television addresses.
Similar problems occur within cable TV (CATV) systems. In a CATV system, typically a unique customer address is located in a control box. The control box is located inside a customer's residence, usually next to the TV. If the control box is replaced for maintenance reasons, maintenance personnel must enter a customer's private home and either manually change or manually record a customer number for future database entry. This method results in unnecessary customer disturbance and is also prone to human error of maintenance personnel.